I’m (30M) sitting in a flat that feels three sizes too big and wondering how someone goes from being your entire world to a stranger in a flash.
We met on the tube three years ago. It was one of those classic, rainy afternoons where the trains were delayed and everyone looked miserable. We were huddled on a cramped platform, I made some rubbish joke about the Northern Line, she laughed, and that was it. I was a goner.
We were a team for three years. I worked myself to the bone to provide for us, paying for every single thing, including the evening university course she just finished. I was even looking at rings.
Then last Tuesday, she sat me down. No shouting, just a quiet, I don’t think I’m in love with you anymore. She’s leaving me for a guy she met on a kink dating site. I didn’t even know she was looking. It feels like a physical blow to the stomach.
I went to make us some tea out of habit, and when I realised there was only one mug to fill, I nearly lost it right there. The flat is just silence and the hum of the fridge now. I’m trying to remember how to be a person again while wondering how long this was going on behind my back.
It properly hurts. Like a bruise that won't fade.
Have any of you lot experienced this? That specific, quiet sort of heartbreak where the world stays the same but everything turns grey? How did you get through the first few weeks?
TLDR: Spent three years together and paid for her entire life and university only for her to leave me for someone she met on a kink site. Feeling completely hollow.